I Wear the Black Hat: Grappling With Villains (Real and Imagined) Read online

  Now, something weird happened immediately after that column was published: While pitching in a spring training game against the Phillies, a line drive hit Helling in the leg and broke his fibula. I felt terrible about this, specifically because I’d written the sentence “As long as Rick Helling walks this earth, I shall never sleep soundly.” I certainly didn’t believe I had cosmically caused this injury, but I didn’t like that I’d expressed a desire for a man to cease walking just before his leg shattered. It was not the type of irony I was looking for. My obsession with Helling had always been semi-performative, but now it seemed sick. I decided to just stop thinking about Rick Helling entirely; this was not difficult, particularly after his 2007 retirement. But then — in 2009 — I happened to be reading an issue of Time magazine (I think I was waiting to see the dentist). The magazine was running an excerpt from The Yankee Years, Joe Torre’s book written with Tom Verducci. The piece was headlined THE MAN WHO WARNED BASEBALL ABOUT STEROIDS.

  To my horror, I realized the Man they were referring to was Rick Helling.

  For all practical purposes, Helling will be remembered as the first player in Major League Baseball to take a meaningful stand against performance-enhancing drugs. The year was 1998: Baseball was spiking in popularity, mostly due to the explosion of home runs by Mark McGwire (who’d hit seventy that summer) and Sammy Sosa (who’d hit sixty-six). Though it seems insane in retrospect, no one wanted to admit that this uptick in power was unnatural . . . except, evidently, Rick Helling. At that winter’s players union meeting, Helling, who was only twenty-seven, stood up and said, “There is this problem with steroids. It’s happening. It’s real. And it’s so prevalent that guys who aren’t doing it are feeling pressure because they’re falling behind. It’s not a level playing field. We’ve got to figure out a way to address it . . . It’s one thing to be a cheater, to be somebody who doesn’t care whether it’s right or wrong. But it’s another thing when other guys feel like they have to do it just to keep up.” Nobody paid any attention to his ideas, so he delivered the same speech the following year. And he made it the year after that, and the year after that, and the year after that. And nobody cared, until they did. Helling had a nice career as a player (93 career wins, 1,058 strikeouts), but this was his real achievement. This is why he’ll be (justifiably) remembered by baseball historians. They will remember him as a truth pioneer.

  So here’s my life: The one person I am on record for hating is the first baseball player on record for taking a public stand against anabolic steroids.

  I have tried to rationalize my way out of this reality. I’ve reversed my position on steroids several times. I’ve tried to imagine that Helling’s speech was grandstanding, or that it’s the typical behavior of a narcissistic personality. But I can’t unread that book excerpt. Here’s Helling’s final quote, spoken as a retired activist, lodged in the article’s penultimate paragraph: “Anybody who knows me knows there was no doubt that I played it the right way. And that’s what I wanted to leave the game with. I couldn’t care less if I made one million dollars or one hundred million dollars, whether I won one game or whether I won three hundred games. I was in it to be honest to myself and to my teammates and to be a good father and husband. For me, it was just the way I was brought up.”

  Those words make me think many things. However, they mainly make me think one thing: He’s lying. I don’t believe what he says, even though he has no reason to fabricate any of it. I just can’t see him as good. So I read those words again, and I read them again, and I read them again. I continue to absorb them as lies. I see them as small lies inside of larger lies. I try to make them what I want them to be. And — eventually — a feeling creeps over my shoulders and up my neck. It’s a feeling I’ve felt my whole life, and it’s a feeling I know I will have forever.

  In my own story, I am the villain.

  Rick Helling is not a bad guy because of what I remember from 1985; I am a bad guy because I remember it (and because it informs how I think about everything else). I know it’s wrong and I do it anyway. I do it consciously. I have the ability to think about this person in a thousand different contexts, yet I prefer keeping my mind unchanged. I can see every alternate reality, but I prefer to arbitrarily create my own. I know the truth, but I just don’t care.

  It’s natural to think of one’s own life as a novel (or a movie or a play), and within that narrative we are always the central character. Thoughtful people try to overcome this compulsion, but they usually fail (in fact, trying makes it worse). In a commencement speech at Kenyon College, David Foster Wallace argued that conquering the preoccupation with self is pretty much the whole objective of being alive — but if we are to believe Wallace succeeded at this goal, it must be the darkest success imaginable. I’m far less confident than DFW. I don’t think it’s feasible (I think people can pretend to do it, but they can’t pretend to themselves). I have slowly come to believe that overcoming this self-focused worldview is impossible, and that life can be experienced only through an imaginary mirror that allows us to occupy the center of a story no one is telling. I don’t think the human mind is capable of getting outside of that box, and I’m not even sure if this limitation is particularly problematic. I never feel weird about being the main character in the nontransferable, nonexistent movie of my life. That’s totally fine. What makes me nervous is a growing suspicion that this movie is fucked up and devoid of meaning. The auteur is a nihilist. What if I’m the main character, but still not the protagonist? What if there is no protagonist? What if there’s just an uninteresting person, thinking about himself because there’s nothing else to think about?

  I wear the plaid hat.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Chuck Klosterman would like to thank the following individuals for their assistance, insight, and support throughout the writing and editing of I Wear the Black Hat:

  Melissa Maerz

  Dmitry Kiper

  Brant Rumble

  Daniel Greenberg

  Rob Sheffield

  Bob Ethington

  Jon Dolan

  Michael Weinreb

  Zach Baron

  Brian Raftery

  Ben Heller

  John Jeremiah Sullivan

  Steve Marsh

  Sean Howe

  Bill Simmons

  Dan Fierman

  Susan Moldow

  Nan Graham

  Kate Lloyd

  Elisa Rivlin

  © KRIS DRAKE

  Chuck Klosterman is the New York Times bestselling author of five previous works of nonfiction (including Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs and Eating the Dinosaur) and two novels (Downtown Owl and The Visible Man). His debut book, Fargo Rock City, was a winner of the ASCAP–Deems Taylor Award. He has written for GQ, Esquire, Spin, The Washington Post, The Guardian, The Believer, and The A.V. Club. He currently covers sports and popular culture for ESPN and serves as The Ethicist for The New York Times Magazine.

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  Fargo Rock City:

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  Index />
  ABBA, 142

  ABC, 56, 98

  Abdul-Jabbar, Kareem, 165–67, 171–73, 179–80

  Adams, Cecil, 10

  Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (video game), 156

  Afghanistan, 144

  Afghan War Diary, 144

  AFL, 97

  AIDS, 105, 113, 151

  Airplane! (film), 167, 179

  airplane hijacking, 40–42, 54–55

  Albarn, Damon, 33

  Albom, Mitch, 178

  Ali, Muhammad, 50–54, 154, 155

  Allen, Marcus, 98

  Allen, Woody, 88, 154, 186

  Allin, G.G., 158

  “Along Came Jones” (Coasters), 10–11

  AMC, 47, 48

  Ament, Jeff, 172–73

  American Experience (TV series), 107

  American Gigolo (film), 152

  American Psycho (Ellis), 74–75

  American Rhapsody (Eszterhas), 109

  Amin, Idi, 191

  Amos, Tori, 31–32, 113

  Andersen, Christopher, 113

  anti-Semitism, 185

  AOL, 138

  Apollonia, 44

  Arabian Prince, 95

  Arfin, Lesley, 87

  Ariel, Washington, 55

  Arizona, 160, 162

  Arkansas, 122

  Aryan Brotherhood, 52

  As Nasty as They Wanna Be (2 Live Crew), 78

  Assange, Julian, 143–47

  Atlas Shrugged (Rand), 130

  Atta, Mohamed, 56

  Aykroyd, Dan, 152

  Backbeat (film), 180

  Bananas (film), 154

  Barney Oldfield’s Race for a Life (play), 10

  baseball players, and drug usage, 197–98

  Basic Instinct (film), 109–13, 130

  Batman character, 59–61, 66, 69–70, 72, 73, 75

  Bayless, Skip, 154

  BBC, 51

  Beastie Boys, 93

  Beatles, 6, 53, 180, 189

  Beavis and Butt-head (TV series), 131

  Bell, Roland, 48

  Bell, Stringer (fictional character, The Wire), 48, 50

  Belushi, John, 152

  Berman, Chris, 154

  Bias, Len, 49

  Big Con, The (Maurer), 42, 43

  Big Lebowski, The (film), 33

  Bill and Hillary: The Marriage (Andersen), 113

  Billboard, 24

  Björk, 100

  Black, Rebecca, 16

  Blackmore, Tim, 73

  Black Sabbath, 131

  Blur, 32–33, 34

  Body Heat (film), 112

  Bond, James (fictional character), 137, 161

  Book of Lies, The (Crowley), 158

  Book of the Law, The (Crowley), 158

  Booth, John Wilkes, 20

  Borden, Lizzie, 178

  Botwin, Nancy (fictional character, Weeds), 47, 50

  Bowie, David, 192

  boxing, 50–54, 154–55

  Branch, Cliff, 96

  Breaking Bad (film), 48

  “Break Stuff” (Limp Bizkit), 149

  Broderick, Matthew, 142–43

  Broken Flowers (film), 152

  Bronson, Charles, 61, 67–68, 70, 71

  Brooklyn, New York, 28, 60, 86, 150

  Brothers in Arms tour, Dire Straits, 29

  Brown, Chris, 45

  Brown, James, 150

  Brown, Nicole, 167, 170, 174–75, 176, 178

  Browne, Jackson, 23, 24, 169

  Brown University, 17

  Bruce, Lenny, 79

  Bryant, Kobe, 178–79

  Buchanan, James, 19

  Bundy, Ted, 74, 116–18

  Burns, Patrick, 18

  Bush, Barbara, 20

  Bush, George H., 121

  Bush, George W., 19, 20, 157–58

  Cabey, Darrel, 65, 68

  California, 25, 37

  Cameron, Kirk, 28

  Campbell, John, 137

  Campbell, Luther, 78

  Cannes Film Festival, 98

  Carrey, Jim, 152

  Carter, Jimmy, 120

  Casino (film), 113

  Casper, Dave, 103

  Castro, Fidel, 134

  Catch Me if You Can (film), 42

  Chamberlain, Wilt, 123–24

  Chase, Chevy, 150–53

  Chavez, Ingrid, 46

  Cheney, Dick, 19

  Chicago Reader, 10

  Christgau, Robert, 104

  Chronic, The (Dr. Dre), 105

  Chuck D, 89, 94

  Churchill, Winston, 119

  CIA, 61

  Cinderella (band), 29

  C.K., Louis, 83

  Clay, Andrew Dice, 78–82, 84–86, 88

  Claypool, Les, 30

  Clinton (TV documentary), 107

  Clinton, Bill, 107–09, 113–15, 119–29, 131

  Clinton, Hillary, 109, 113, 115, 120, 125, 126, 128, 130

  CNN, 55

  Coasters, 10

  Cobb, Randall “Tex,” 154–55

  Coe, David Allan, 189

  Coke (Coca-Cola), 32

  Colbert, Stephen, 80

  Coldplay, 33–34, 35

  college football, Paterno’s career in, 14–18

  Colts, 160, 161

  comedians and serious films, 152

  comedy

  allowable subjects for, 83–84, 87

  Chase’s career in, 150–53

  Clay’s career in, 78–82, 84–86, 88

  Comedy Central, 151

  Community (TV series), 59, 151

  context, and meaning, 6

  Continental Divide (film), 152

  Cooper, D. B., 40–42, 54–57

  Coors beer, 105, 174

  “Corduroy” (Pearl Jam), 173

  Cosell, Howard, 153–55

  Cowlings, A. C., 175

  Crouch, Stanley, 63, 64–65

  Crowley, Aleister, 155–59

  Cruisin’ with the Tooz (Matuszak), 103

  Cuba, 40

  Cube, Ice, 80, 93–94, 95, 105

  Cumberbatch, Benedict, 144

  Curley, Tim, 16

  Dahmer, Jeffrey, 118–19

  Dancer in the Dark (von Trier), 100

  Darko, Donnie (fictional character), 37

  “Dark Side of Self and Social Perception: Black Uniforms and Aggression in Professional Sports, The” (Frank and Gilovich), 100–101

  “Darling Nikki” (Prince), 44

  Dave Matthews, 35

  David, Larry, 79

  Davis, Al, 97–98, 103, 105

  Day, Morris (fictional character, Purple Rain), 44–46

  Day the Laughter Died, The (Day), 88

  DC Comics, 59

  “Dear John” (Swift), 36

  Death Certificate (Ice Cube), 105

  death penalty, 20

  Death Wish (film series), 61–62, 66–69, 70, 73

  Deliberate Stranger, The (TV movie), 117

  Democrats, 61, 113, 129, 161

  Dershowitz, Alan, 168, 169

  Deschanel, Zooey, 174

  de Tocqueville, Alexis, 73

  Detroit Lions, 193

  DeVaughn, William, 91

  Dexter (TV series), 49

  Diamond Head, 1

  Diary of a Drug Fiend (Crowley), 156

  Diary of a Madman (Osbourne), 156

  Dio, Ronnie James, 157

  Dire Straits, 29

  Dirty Harry (film), 69

  Disclosure (film), 111

  “Disco Strangler, The” (Eagles), 38

  DJ Yella, 95, 105

  Dr. Dre, 95, 105

  Dr Pepper, 105

  Dogville (von Trier), 98–100

  Donnie Darko (film), 37

  Do-Right, Dudley (cartoon character), 11

  Dotcom, Kim, 137–43, 147

  Double Live Gonzo (Nugent), 32

  Douglas, Michael, 110–11

  Downfall (film), 193

  Dreamgirls (film), 152

  Driving Miss Daisy (film), 152

  Drudge Report
, 122

  drug dealers, 47

  drug usage

  baseball players and, 197–98

  football players and, 102

  Keith Richards’s arrest for, 39–40

  Duncan, Tim, 171

  Dunn, Nora, 82

  Dunst, Kirsten, 99

  Durst, Fred, 149–50

  Dylan, Bob, 186–89

  Eagles, 23–26, 37, 38

  Eastwood, Clint, 69

  Easy Rider (film), 47

  Eazy-E, 94, 95, 100, 104, 105

  Ecstasy, 47

  Elastica, 33

  elections, presidential, 19–21, 120, 127–28, 161

  Elliott, Chris, 30

  Ellis, Bret Easton, 74–75

  Ellsberg, Daniel, 145

  EMF, 80

  Engineer, The (play), 10

  Enter the Void (film), 132

  Entourage (TV series), 79

  ESPN, 18, 28, 52, 105

  Esquire (magazine), 195, 197

  Eszterhas, Joe, 109–10

  Explaining Hitler (Rosenbaum), 185

  FAA, 41

  Facebook, 119

  “Face Down, Ass Up” (2 Live Crew), 78

  Fackenheim, Emil, 185–86

  Falco, Edie, 126

  Faster Pussycat, 29

  Fatal Attraction (film), 111

  FBI, 41, 104, 117, 137, 138, 139

  Fearless (Swift), 35–36

  Fear of a Black Planet (Public Enemy), 93, 94

  Fenby, Jonathan, 189